In this chapter from Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Step by Step, you’ll learn how customer service teams can create, update, and resolve cases in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Chapter at a Glance

In this chapter, you will learn how to

✓ Create and assign a service request case.

✓ Manage service request activities.

✓ Resolve a service request case.

✓ Cancel and reopen a service request case.

Many CRM system implementations are initiated by sales and
marketing teams to build a shared, central repository of customer sales
and order data. In the previous chapters of this book, you’ve learned
how Microsoft Dynamics CRM can be used to manage marketing activities,
prospective customers (leads), sales opportunities, and orders. Of
course, after a sale is completed, your company’s relationship with the
customer does not end! To ensure that the customer is satisfied with the
sale, customer service teams can use the information gathered during the
marketing and sales processes to manage the post-sale relationship with
the customer.

Consider the following scenario: You’ve just purchased a flight to
your favorite vacation locale from a travel website. The day before
you’re scheduled to leave, you receive an email message indicating that
your flight has been canceled and that you’ll need to contact the travel
website’s customer service team for more information. You call the
customer service number listed in the message, only to be routed through
three customer service representatives, explaining your situation to
each before someone finally books you on another flight.

Regardless of the purchase, this scenario is not uncommon when
customer support issues are involved, which is why a system that allows
customer service teams to share sales and support information is such a
powerful concept. All communications regarding the support request can
be captured in one location and viewed by everyone on the team to ensure
a speedy resolution. As the archive of service requests accumulates,
customer service managers can identify common issues and trends that can
then be used to drive enhancements to the sales process, service, or
product development.

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM, service requests are called cases. A
case represents any request or support incident for a customer.
Typically, a case includes a description of the service issue or problem
reported by the customer and the related notes and follow-up activities
that service representatives use to resolve the issue.

Providing an avenue for customers to submit requests or issues
during and after the sales process is critical to ensuring that
customers are satisfied and willing to do business with your company in
the future.

In this chapter, you’ll learn how customer service teams can
create, update, and resolve cases in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

PRACTICE FILES

There are no
practice files for this chapter.

IMPORTANT

The images used in this book reflect the default form and field
names in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Because the software offers extensive
customization capabilities, it’s possible that some of the record
types or fields have been relabeled in your Microsoft Dynamics CRM
environment. If you cannot find the forms, fields, or security roles
referred to in this book, contact your system administrator for
assistance.

IMPORTANT

You must know the location of your Microsoft Dynamics CRM
website to work the exercises in this book. Check with your system
administrator to verify the web address if you don’t know it.

Creating and Assigning a Service Request Case

Each case in Microsoft Dynamics CRM contains the details of a
customer request or issue, as well as follow-up dates, resolution
steps, and other details. Multiple cases can be tracked for each
customer, and each case has its own follow-up dates and status value.
Because of the flexibility of the case record and the ability to
customize forms and fields in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, cases are often
used to track more than just support requests. Examples of how we’ve
seen cases used include the following:

Resolving call center support requests from customers of a
financial services firm

Managing concierge requests for top-tier clients of a
hospitality provider

Tracking safety requests to fix potholes and replace broken
streetlights for a municipal government

Capturing end-user requests for the CRM system itself

Tracking warranty requests for residential home sales

In this exercise, you’ll create a new case for a customer who is requesting a product
catalog. After creating the case with the appropriate details from the
customer, you’ll assign it to a customer service
representative.

SET UP

Use your own Microsoft
Dynamics CRM installation in place of the CRM sample data shown in
the exercise. Use the Windows Internet Explorer web browser to
navigate to your Microsoft Dynamics CRM website before beginning
this exercise.

In the Service area, click
Cases to view the case list.

On the ribbon, on the Cases tab, click the New button to launch the New Case form.

In the Title field, enter the
following text description: Product
Catalog Request.

Click the Lookup
button next to the Customer field, and select an
account.

TIP

Each case must be related to a customer account or
contact. In addition to customers, cases can also be related to
service contracts and products.

Select a Subject category for
the case.

Set the Case Origin
field to Phone to
indicate that the customer called with this request.

Set the Case Type field to
Request.

On the Case
tab of the ribbon, click Save
to create the case.

TIP

Microsoft Dynamics CRM automatically assigns a number to
each case when it is first saved. Case auto-numbering can be
configured by system administrators in the Administration
section of the Settings pane. By default, each case will be
created with a three-character prefix
(CAS), a four-digit code, and a
six-character identifier—for example,
CAS-01028-H6R6J6.

On the Case
tab of the ribbon, in the Collaborate group, click the Assign
button to assign the case to a customer service representative.

In the Assign to Team or
User
dialog box, select Assign to
another user or team and use the Lookup button to select another user
record.

Click OK to assign the record
to the selected user.

CONFIGURING THE SUBJECT TREE

Subjects are categories that are used to organize
products, sales literature, cases, and knowledge base articles in
Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Consider the subject tree as an index of
topics related to your business. A hierarchical subject tree can be
used in Microsoft Dynamics CRM to categorize your business
information. Because subject categories are applied across sales and
service records, it’s important to consider the best categories for
your business when configuring your Microsoft Dynamics CRM
system.

Your subject tree might be aligned to your products or
business divisions, or perhaps you want to track customer invoicing
questions without relating them to a specific product or service.
The following table includes sample subject trees for different
industries.

Business Type

Sample Subject Tree

Financial services firm

– Brokerage services

– Product A

+ Client relations

+ Confirmations

+ Settlements

+ Product B

+ Financial planning

+ Foreign exchange

Software consulting company

+ Billing

– Product support

+ Product A

+ Product B

+ Sales and marketing

+ Service agreements

– Services

+ Application development

+ Consulting

Residential real estate developer

+ Buyers

– Conversion management

+ Tenants

+ Marketing materials

– Projects

– Property A

+ Units

+ Other inventory

+ Warranties

+ Property B

The subject tree is accessed and updated from the Business
Management section of the Settings area in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Because the right to create, edit, and remove subjects for your
organization is considered an administrator function, changing the
structure of the subject tree is outside the scope of this book. For
assistance with creating the subject tree in your Microsoft Dynamics
CRM environment, contact your system administrator.